Interview Questions

Below are the questions that I intend on asking my interviewee, however, I will expand on his answers and form questions up on the spot to gain even more data from the interview.

- How old are you?

- Obviously you’re a coach, so could you just tell me what you coach?

- Why do you coach these sports?

- So would you say you get some enjoyment out of it then?

- What makes you keep going, as a coach, why do you do it all the time?

- It’s like an addiction so it seems, would you agree with that statement?

- When did you become a coach, and why?

- Have you always been as fond of coaching, or was it recently that it grabbed you with the birth of   your very own American football team?

- You’re a big fan of two sports, but which is better and why?

- Right, your dad is a coach, as are you, do you hope that your two children go down the same            path?

- Speaking of your children, what’s it like living as a full time single parent?

- And if you don’t mind me asking, how did this come about?

- Harper, obviously plays for your football team, and seems to be up for the American football too,   does that make you happy that both he and Cole are into sports, especially with today’s society -   and increasing obesity?

- Back to the coaching now, and what would you say is the biggest thrill of it all?

- Would you say you get this with both teams you run then?

- Let’s talk about football in general now, and focusing on the negative light its bringing over the       past few years, why do you think this is? The money?

- Grassroots football seems to be very different when I've spoken to you in the past, how is the         game different from when you played, to now when Harper is?

- A lot of scrutiny may lie with parents and I’m aware of your first-hand experience with that, could   you tell me of the ordeals you've faced as a coach, in reference to parents?

- And would you again say this is a thing present in both sports?

- If you could change football by adopting a technique from the NFL, what would it be and why?

- So, you’re a Liverpool and Pittsburgh Stealers fan, but would you rather coach them, or coach at     grassroots? Forgetting the money of course.

- You've played football since you were little; take me on a little timeline of your clubs and                 achievements.

- Now, please take me on a timeline of the clubs you have coached.

- First word that comes to your head with this one, but If there is one thing you hate in sports it’s a   what?

- And how would you eradicate this in sports?

- In five years’ time, where do you see yourself?

- In five years’ time where do you see both of your kids?

- And in five years’ time, where do you see the Spraire Lads Panthers?

- You've coached some players with hard lives, how do you manage this?

- But what makes you such a good coach?

- Regarding American football, a lot of people think its padded rugby, in England anyway, so what     do you think of this stereotype?

- You watched your beloved Stealers live for the first time last year, was that a highlight of your         life?

- And what about the Superbowl ring?

- Do you see yourself winning any silverware with the Spraire panthers?

- What about the Steam? Do they have a chance of winning some rings?

- You recently got yourself a coaching job with the Darlington council, could you explain what that      will entail?

- And surely that must be a thrilling experience for you?

- Obviously before this, you have had a few run ins with people about not having a job, but being a     single parent of two, does the work ever end?

- And it isn't paid! So what keeps you going in the hard times?

Thanks for your time, and I hope the Spraire Panthers, and Darlington Steam bring a lot of success.

Article Planning Sheets

DPS 1 – Match Report (Spraire Envy Last Ditch Goal)

Article target audience: 10-50 year olds, male/female.

	Planning Comments
article genre (purpose, type)	This article will be in the sport genre with my magazine being based on football. The purpose of this article is to entertain due to the fact the readers will be attracted by the match report, showing great pictures of the match in focus through descriptive text and plenty of images. The secondary function of this article, however, is to inform, as I will be informing my target audience of what happened in the match.
Narrative voice (1st, 2nd or 3rd person)	This article will be written in the third person from an omniscient character as this is generally the narrative voice of all match reports.
Register (Informal/formal, colloquial, dialect, taboo words?)	With the match report, I feel like I should create a formal piece, as the data is obtained through factual events. As well as this, my target audience will be reading the report for the sole purpose of gaining information on the match. Due to this, my register will consist of phatic language as I want to get straight to the point. No taboosims will be used in my magazine at all because of the target audience reaching young children, and these words could be offensive to the adults too.
Stylistics (repetition, strong verbs, adjectives, alliteration, similes, metaphors, sentencing, rhythm)	For this article I will be using plenty of adjectives to describe the game as a thrilling match. I will do this because it will engage my target audience, whereas I could use very little adjectives and create a boring text. To also engage my audience I will use metaphors to describe how the ball moved, or how someone ran to give the text a much more dramatic sense. On top of all of this I will use a lot of positive lexis to promote grassroots football subtly. A rule of three will be adopted in this text to represent the fast-paced moments of the match, as this short, concise technique will offer a lot of data, and be read quickly due to its syntax.
Tone of address (hectoring, sarcastic, ‘matey’, ironic, etc)	Due to this article being a formal text, a tone of address will not be necessary as the article will not be engaging the audience through rhetorical questions or references to the reader. Terms such as ‘matey’ will not be needed at all as the focus of the text will be the match.
Structure and pace (discourse structure, logical paragraphing, connectives, conclusion)	The pace of my article will be dependent on the events of the match. For example, at the beginning of the article it will be slow paced and very neutral, whilst further into the article, it will become much more fast paced in certain areas to represent the emotion and pace of the game in focus. To do this I will use triplets and strong adjectives.

DPS 2 – Interview (Kids are wrapped up in Cotton Wool)

Article target audience: 30-50 year olds, male/female.

	Planning Comments
article genre (purpose, type)	The main purpose of this article is to give an insight into the life of a coach. As well as this, the interviewee is a single parent of two children, so his challenges will be interesting. The article will be majorly based around the interviewee’s life in terms of his children, him as a football coach, and him as an American football coach, with slight glimpses into his past too, as he almost made it as a professional footballer. Due to this, the main purpose of this text is to inform, however, it will also hold elements of an entertainment purpose as it will need to engage the target audience.
Narrative voice (1st, 2nd or 3rd person)	The article will constantly switch between the first and third person, as in some parts of the article, it will be written from the perspective of the author, for example ‘Darren was always a fan of coaching…’ and, the first person in which will be written from the perspective of the interview, representing that of direct quotes from the interview, for example, ‘I’ve always enjoyed coaching really …’.
Register (Informal/formal, colloquial, dialect, taboo words?)	The article will not be pinned down to just one register, with the text occasionally representing informal techniques amongst a majorly formal presentation. However, the use of colloquialisms will be of much use as the interviewee is from the North East, and his idiolect is most likely to contain language features from such area. I feel that these will help engage the audience as it doesn’t separate the interviewee from everyday life, but shows him (the coach) as the same as everyone else, as in grassroots football. Parents tend to be very anti-coaches when their child doesn’t get played, or the coach makes a negative, but needed statement. No taboosims will be used in my magazine at all because of the target audience reaching young children, and these words could be offensive to the adults too.
Stylistics (repetition, strong verbs, adjectives, alliteration, similes, metaphors, sentencing, rhythm)	Despite the interview having not yet been conducted, I expect repetition to be a greatly use technique as it can add power and emotion to the article. However, adjectives can also do this, but I highly doubt they will be of vast use, as the interview is likely to be very long and will have to be concise. In terms of stylistics, there will be no major creativity in terms of language, but there will be in terms of imagery and graphics.
Tone of address (Hectoring, sarcastic, ‘matey’, ironic, etc.)	My interviewee tends to be a rather professional person, with a good grasp of standard English; therefore, in the circumstances of an interview about his job, I feel that he will offer rich, formal qualitative data. However, I do tend to be rather close with my interviewee, and this could extract some lexical choices such as ‘mate’ and less formal language to create a more personalised article, potentially engaging and enticing the audience into his life.
Structure and pace (discourse structure, logical paragraphing, connectives, conclusion)	The structure of this interview article will tend to be rather creative but also organised in a way that it will follow a chronological order of events regarding my interviewee’s life.  However, I do need to ensure that the foreground of this article is presented within the first few paragraphs; therefore using the first two paragraphs to talk about the interviewee’s coaching style etc. I plan to link the first two and last two paragraphs, whilst the middle content of the article will focus around his life, I will ensure that the beginning and latter stages of my article will be majorly based around coaching.

DPS 3 – Review (COACHING WEEKLY – See it, Do it.)

Article target audience: 15-50 year olds, male/female.

	Planning Comments
article genre (purpose, type)	The purpose if this article is to offer my personal opinion on a coaching drill. This type of article will be a generic feature of my magazine, with a different coaching drill each week. This article will follow not only my views, but that of players, and other coaches, using a breakout box to represent another coaches’ view on last weeks’ coaching drill. The main functions of this article are to advise, and inform.
Narrative voice (1st, 2nd or 3rd person)	This article will flow between the first and second person narratives to ensure that while I maintain the article is based on my personal opinion, it is also engaging the audience for their opinion, and offering advice.
Register (Informal/formal, colloquial, dialect, taboo words?)	Coaching tends to be a very serious topic for many people, because if they are going to do something, they want to do it properly, therefore I will ensure that my article uses a formal approach, with some elements of informal language, where I may use scenarios to explain what could go wrong with the drill. However, this is the only form of informal text I will use, as I will avoid the use of colloquialisms and taboosims. No taboosims will be used in my magazine at all because of the target audience reaching young children, and these words could be offensive to the adults too.
Stylistics (repetition, strong verbs, adjectives, alliteration, similes)	Due to the structure and layout of this article, repetition, adjectives, similes, and metaphors will be of no use. To style of this article will be a plain and simple text that does what it is set out to do.
Tone of address (Hectoring, sarcastic, ‘matey’, ironic, etc.)	The tone of address will tend to be plain and simple, using the common pronoun of ‘you’ to represent the interactional language I will use when engaging the audience into the article.
Structure and pace (discourse structure, logical paragraphing, connectives, conclusion)	The article will be very organised through the use of subheadings such as ‘Outcomes’ and ‘Disadvantages’ as this will help break up the article making it much more easier to read. As for the older pole of my target audience, they may just want to skip to a certain aspect of the coaching drill; for example, they may just want to get an insight into the potential problems of the drill, rather than learning how to conduct it, as they may also know.

Contingency Plans

My Contingency Plans

My Top Ten Project Killers

What could go wrong during production	How are you going to avoid this issue? What’s your back up plan?
Weather – it could snow when I plan to take active photographs of sport. This could affect all three of my DPS’s because they will all contain active imagery.	I will try and anticipate the weather conditions, potentially rescheduling photography plans for a further date. In general, football games at grassroots level tend to be called off in serious weather conditions such as snow.
Failure of Technology – This could affect me in numerous ways, for example the programmes used to create my magazine could be faulty (shutting down during production).	I will attempt to avoid the potetial loss of my products through constant saving of any material I produce. In past experiences this factor has been present, clsoing down works in progress at many academic levels such as school.
Failure of Technology – I could also be affected by the computer in which I choose to create my product on breaking. Although most data is transferred through my college account, I have to be wary of the fact that there is potentail in my product only being active on one computer – this computer could break.	Just like the box above, I will plan to save my work constantly, however, I will also save it to a memory stick to allow me the room of working on a different computer in the case of damage/failure in technology.
Models don’t turn up – potentially, my models may not turn up for the photoshoot.	To connter this problem before it begins, I will ensure that I remind my model of his duty every day for four days leading up to the shoot. As well as this, I will call hima  few hours before on the day to ensure he turns up.
Consent cannot be obtained – as with the nature of my magazine, I have to ensure that I attain both player and parent consent in regards to the use of imagery and names of children, however, I may not be given consent for some children.	In terms of the article, I will omit any scenarios in which invloved the child(s), as I will also do with the imagery. In terms of imagery it is not too bad because I can edit certain children from the image.
Lack of time – my interviewee works as a paid coach, so trying to find a time suitable for both of us in terms of interviews and photoshoots will be difficult.	I will have a chat with my interviewee to try and arrange a day/time in the week where I can interview him, and then arrange a date/time at a later date to do the photoshoot.
Models not turning up in costume – My models may not turn up in the required clothing for the photoshoot.	I will send my model a text on the morning of the shoot telling him what to wear. As well as this, I will bring a spare costume just in case his gets dirty, he forgets, or any other factor disallows him the chance of wearing what I want him to.
Props disappearing – there is potential that if I leave my props in college, they could be moved, or may disappear.	I will keep props close to me, in my bag. I will ensure that nobody goes near my bag, and will also make sure that I have it with me during the photo-shoot. When we get to the photo-shoot, I will place all props on a table, and use them when needed. Certain props will also be brought in on the day of the photoshoot by my interviewee.
Memory stick corrupts – with me saving my work on a memeory stick, there is also potential of this corrupting.	I will have three copies of each file, and therefore if my memory stick corrupts it won’t be a problem, however, I will make sure that I email any work in progress to myself, just in case.
Photographs coming back with poor quality, out of focus, and poor resolution – there is potential that my photographs may not be up to scratch.	To ensure this doesn’t happen, I will take more than one photo for each pose, therefore I can ensure that I am getting numerous photos to choose from. As well as this, I will check the first photo of every pose to ensure that they are perfect. Nothing but perfection is good enough for my magazine!

Pitch